Australia: Police goons walk free

This is a tremendous disgrace. For betraying their position of trust they should have been locked up for years

Confronting secret footage of an armed robbery suspect being bashed by three Victorian detectives has been publicly released for the first time. The three policeman whose bashing of an armed robbery suspect was caught on secret video have walked free. A magistrate yesterday cleared the release of the video that killed the trio's police careers.The damning footage shows the suspect being kicked, slapped, tackled and hit with a telephone at the St Kilda Rd police complex.

The three former armed offenders squad officers were charged after the screening of the video footage at a police corruption watchdog hearing in September, 2006. It is the first time the graphic and damning video has been released to the media. The video, credited with leading to the disbanding of the armed offenders squad, was first aired at a controversial Office of Police Integrity hearing in September, 2006.

Yesterday, former Sen-Det Robert Lachlan Dabb, 36, former Sen-Det Mark Harrison Butterfield, 38, and former Det Sgt Matthew Adrian Franc, 38, left court free men, but with their careers over. Magistrate Peter Lauritsen sentenced Dabb and Butterfield to 10-week intensive corrections orders and Franc to a five-week Intensive Corrections Order. An ICO is a jail sentence served in the community [????] that combines community work, education and treatment.

The men pleaded guilty to the unlawful assault on May 10, 2006, of a suspect arrested over two armed robberies. Unlawful assault carries a maximum three-month jail term. The trio, who were given glowing character references in court, still face charges of misleading the OPI director.

The black and white video is filmed from a camera hidden in the ceiling of an interview room at the armed offenders squad offices in St Kilda Rd. It was placed following a letter of complaint to the OPI about the activities of members of the now-disbanded armed offenders squad. The suspect is slapped, kicked, flung across the room and hit with a telephone and tissue box in five separate attacks over four hours. He repeatedly cries in pain.

At one stage Butterfield tackles the man to the ground and tells him: "Welcome to the armed robbery squad." At another point he is told: "Start showing us some respect here. F------ (slap) armed (slap) robbery (slap) squad." In the final assault, Dabb strikes the man with a phone after he complains that he has yet to be given a phone call: "Want a phone call? "Here it is, here's ya f------ phone call . . . "Don't learn about attitude, do ya? Want to make another one?"

In dramatic scenes, Dabb collapsed in the witness box at the OPI hearing when he first viewed the video clips. The three men initially denied it was them in the video. All three have since resigned from Victoria Police.

On Wednesday, a former colleague of Franc gave evidence that he regretted that his offence had affected more than 30 detectives in the disbanding of the armed offenders squad. The court heard the assaults were aimed at getting a gun used in the armed robberies off the streets.

Report here (Via Australian Politics)




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